Carlos Miller is founder and publisher of Photography is Not a Crime, which began as a one-man blog in 2007 to document his trial after he was arrested for photographing police during a journalistic assignment.
He is also the author of The Citizen Journalist's Photography Handbook, which can be purchased through Amazon.

Detroit mayor bans reality show from shooting police raids

May 27, 2010

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Detroit is one of those cities that needs all the positive press it can get.

And for the most part, the A&E TV reality show “The First 48″ does a good job on making its police department look good.

After all, it shows them getting murderers off the streets on a regular basis.

But now Detroit Mayor David Bing has banned the show from tagging along with police on raids because of the 7-year-old girl who was shot dead during a police raid gone bad.

It’s obvious that he is trying to pin the blame on the cameras when it was just a clear lack of judgment from officer Joseph Weekely.

Bing said he had no idea that the Detroit Police Department was featured on the show, even though it has been since 2006.

The contract predates both Bing’s and Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans’ time in office, though Evans subsequently signed a contract extension, according to Dumas. She didn’t know how Evans was able to do that without checking with Bing or what the terms of the contract are.

I rarely watch TV but I know that the Miami Police Department is also regularly featured on the show.

Meanwhile, attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who claims to have seen a video that proves Weekely shot the girl before entering the house, has not come forward with the video, so I’m thinking he’s full of shit.

You would think he would at least be trying to subpoena the video tapes from A&E considering they were filming the raid.

Or you would think that A&E, being the good citizens that they are, would voluntarily come forward with the tapes to determine how little Aiyana Jones was killed.